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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office keeps warning us that, due to the nation's pile-up of debt, the fiscal ship of state is in danger of hitting an iceberg.

The CBO has cited debt-related crises in Argentina, Ireland, and Greece as useful comparisons with the one that could strike the U.S., a shocking analogy first unfurled in the agency's July 2010 issue brief, "Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis." That brief was referenced in the agency's new warning, "The 2014 Long-Term Budget Outlook," released Tuesday.

The CBO's Cassandra-like message probably will fall on deaf ears in Washington, and for the usual reasons. The crisis isn't imminent, and politicians don't normally address disasters due to occur long after they leave office. Federal debt held by the public as a share of nominal gross domestic product, currently 74%, is projected to rise over the next 10 years. But it won't be until the mid-2020s that the debt/GDP ratio really takes off.

Based on its "extended baseline" scenario, which assumes no change in laws, the CBO foresees the debt soaring above 100% by the late 2030s and rising rapidly from there. Based on its "extended alternative fiscal scenario," which essentially consists of informed judgments on how the budgetary situation is likely to play out in the real world of politics, the agency's projections are far more dire: The debt-to-GDP ratio would rise above 180% by the late 2030s and continue climbing from there.

Either way, in the CBO's understated language, the "debt would be on an upward path, relative to the size of the economy, a trend that could not be sustained indefinitely." That unsustainable upward path is fraught with risks. And while it is generally true that long-term forecasts are not worth betting on, this one is too plausible to ignore. The next dozen years will be the relative calm before the storm because the retiring baby boomers have yet to reach critical mass. This year, they will range in age from 50 to 68; 12 years from now, the range will be 62 to 80. Combine that with slow expansion of the working-age population, and the grim demographics are virtually baked in the cake.

Then add the soaring growth of "Federal spending for Social Security and the government's major health-care programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and subsidies for health insurance purchased through exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act," and federal spending should continue to swamp revenue, even after the baby boomers exit from the world's stage.

The updated CBO report lends due weight to the recent slowdown in the growth of spending on medical care, a key reason its projections are not quite as dire as the one released last September. But the debt is still on an unsustainable course.

WHY TAKE THE PROBLEM of soaring government debt and deficits so seriously?

For one thing, there is the crowding-out effect. "Increased government borrowing," the CBO explains, "would cause a larger share of the savings potentially available for investment to be used for purchasing government securities." As a result, the "purchases would crowd out investment in capital goods…which makes workers more productive." In addition, "because wages are determined mainly by workers' productivity, the reduction in investment would reduce wages as well."

Then there is the reduced ability to use deficit financing as a policy instrument. As the agency explains, "when federal debt was below 40% of GDP, the government had some flexibility to respond to the financial crisis and severe recession by increasing spending and cutting taxes." Not so when the debt is 140% of gross domestic product.

Finally, there is the danger of a fiscal crisis à la Greece and Argentina, based on the "greater risk that investors would become unwilling to finance the government's borrowing needs unless they were compensated with very high interest rates." That danger would could be magnified by the fact that nearly half of U.S. Treasury debt is in foreign hands.

The agency recommends that "policy changes to shrink deficits in the long term" be made "sooner rather than later." Good luck with that.